The first half is pretty terrible, owing to a thin, dull and cornball screenplay (by director Robert Zemeckis and Christopher Browne) that makes virtually no attempt at character development and the awkward performances (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as tightrope walker Philippe Petit and Ben Kingsley as his mentor adopting unconvincing European accents). In fact, the first half seems primed to rush the audience to the second, which features the Main Event: the preparation and execution of Petit's 1974 high wire walk between the World Trade Center towers. But if the first half is disappointing, the second more than makes up for it, primarily in the film's raison d'etre, the actual walk, which immerses the viewer in the disorienting, heart-pounding experience in all its glory. It's here that Zemeckis reasserts himself as one of Hollywood's premier showman whose ability to deliver oversized entertainments has few peers. And it's also here, particularly in the moving conclusion, that Zemeckis' artistry emerges as he makes Petit's story personal by introducing the great overarching theme, time and its relation to the individual, that has informed his greatest and most resonant films, "Cast Away" and "The Polar Express".
